If you’re a timid planner, does that make you prepidatious? Addendum: Turns out there is some disagreement on whether trepidatious (also sometimes spelled trepidacious with the former having more agreement) is a real word. You won’t find it in webster.com and the wordpress spell checker shows it as an error. But you will find it [...]

Germanium Pronunciation: \(ˌ)jər-ˈmān, -nyəm\ Function: noun Date: just made it up today A plant having regular usually white, pink, or purple flowers, being at once relevant and appropriate as a gift.

When art has passion behind it, one cannot help but be moved by it in some way. Today I want to celebrate three artistic endeavours: 1. Gustavo Dudamel, Conductor On January 31 we enjoyed a most amazing concert conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, a young (24!) Venezuelan conductor. I’ve always loved Barber’s Adagio for Strings, which [...]

Once upon a time, humans were hunter/gatherers. We never stayed in one place for very long; as the food was used up or the herds moved on, so did we. But then we discovered agriculture and settled down. It was the start of civilization. One of the side effects (other than modern obesity) was that [...]

When I was a kid, I loved my mom’s toast. She made the best toast in the world, not too dark, not too light, just perfect. I once told her how she made the best toast. She just smiled. A tradition in our family was that, on your birthday, you could pick whatever you wanted [...]

In the basement of my condo building there is a sign up that says, “Refuse”. I’ve often pondered the message it was trying to convey, in its somewhat oblique conciseness. Refuse what? Something in particular? Or more generally, refuse to just believe everything everyone says? Was it intended as a moral lesson? A political statement? [...]